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Image recognition range computer

Digital video camera + spotting scope + laptop + image recognition software = automated target range assistant/spotter
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A bit specialised, this one. Basically integrate a high resolution digital video camera into a spotting scope (you can buy spotting scopes with integral CCD's now, but most are for stills only), and feed this into a laptop. The software would have an image recognition module sufficient to recognise and callibrate to a given target sheet layout (probably need a special target sheet with "wittness marks" to make this work), and also to "recognise" bullet holes when they appear on the target, possibly with feedback or even audio recognition of a shot being fired.

This lets you get on with the business of operating your rig and you can just look over at your laptop screen to see a zoomed image of the target, with hits highlighted, probably even some data like group size, drift/creep, etc. It could even let you re-use a given target for multiple groups because it would be able to "remember" previous hits and discount them when looking for the next hit.

From there you could do all sorts of things like having databases of different load workups, trending and statistical analysis of group performance, creep rates, number of fliers, precision vs accuracy for scope creep or bedding issues, etc etc etc.

If you haven't spent hours on the range either a) going back and forward from your own spotting scope, sketching out the target and strike layout and trying to work out WTF is up with your strike pattern, or b) playing assistant so someone else where your only job is to call the fall of shot, you might not appreciate how useful this would be.

I've not been able to find this anywhere.

Custardguts, Mar 08 2012

CheyTac .460 and friends http://www.cheytac.com/
Not all of the original system is pictured, strengthening my suspicion that the complicated bits have been discontinued. [Alterother, Mar 10 2012]

[link]






       Put the camera closer to the target, I think. Longer wires - or a wireless connection - are a lot cheaper than high-powered optics.   

       You can actually "subtract" one picture (before shot) from another (post-shot) and have only the difference appear, which you can then do measurements with down to the limits of your resolution & stability.   

       //If you haven't spent hours on the range// My Pa had to leave school after the 8th grade (1920) to support his family. In 1980, he decided he was going to teach himself math, bought a TI-30 calculator, and a chronograph. On weekends, I'd come home from college, and he and I would go out and "collect some data" for him to practice on - his .300 Weatherby, my 6mm Ruger, a Bausch&Lomb Zoom60, and a couple hundred rounds of reloads... oh, yeah, this would have saved me a lot of hundred-yard dashes.
lurch, Mar 09 2012
  

       [lurch] - yeah I get that you could put the camera closer, but you can get a 60X range scope for about a hundred bucks now, so I figured it wasn't a big deal.
Custardguts, Mar 10 2012
  

       Excellent idea. Very much worth baking.
haywardt, Mar 10 2012
  

       Almost baked in the form of several separate but integrable components designed for use with the CheyTac .460, one of the world's most accurate sniper rifles, and almost certainly the most complicated. The full kit included a multi-spectral rangefinder, environmental sensor, and a secondary optical targeter with rudimentary target-recognition and designation functions, all compatible with a ballistic solution computer that plugs into a special digitally-enhanced telescopic sight.   

       I can find plenty of online literature regarding the weapon itself, but am waiting to post a link until I find a site discussing the whole package. As relatively few snipers have secondary education in electronic engineering, I don't think the entire system is available anymore. I think it was once featured in an episode of CSI: New York.   

       As brother [bigsleep] says, a good scope will do the job for an experienced shooter, and IMO no glorified pocket calculator can take the place of a trusted spotter at your left hand.   

       <later:> Okay, the CheyTac frontpage <link> has a photo of the rifle and most of the associated junk, but not much info about the accessories.
Alterother, Mar 10 2012
  
      
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